But Where Are You Really From?
Made possible with the support of the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery in order to take 23 short films addressing the othering and belonging of dual identity filmmakers across the UK.
The three programmes of The Good Immigrant, Trippin’ Over My Tongue and Call Me By My Name screened at @barbicancentre @hydeparkph @exeterphoenix and more!
In true T A P E fashion we host conversations, live music events and workshops to further explore the themes of BWAYRF? in collaboration with a number of people that we adore.
PODCAST
THE GOOD IMMIGRANT
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A human refugee from another planet describes their family’s experiences facing discrimination, gentrification and the violence of British bureaucracy.
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With dreams of being the best ancestor she can be for her teenage son, Indigenous Bolivian single mother applies for a Visa to remain in the U.K. while embarking on journey of healing the wounds of her past.
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Mandla rae has a selective memory and they are scrambling to piece together their life as british as a watermelon questions what it means to belong through exploring mandla’s fragmented asylum and migration memories.
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Following yet another argument with her mother Miri seeks refuge in her best friend, the beautiful and rebellious Elle. Whilst out meeting some boys, something happens leading Miri to re-evaluate her identity.
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Sanzgiri’s signature blend of 16mm sequences, 3D renders, direct animation and desktop aesthetics are vividly employed in this lush and ghostly look at questions of heritage, culture, and the remnants of history.
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A trilogy of short documentaries (‘Fatherland’, ‘Motherland’, ‘Homeland’) mapping out the personal migration stories of the filmmaker’s family, as well as a look at a generation of young muslims in multicultural London.
This first programme, The Good Immigrant, explores the ‘good immigrant’ trope experienced by refugees, and children of immigrants where acceptance is afforded to those deemed best behaved. The films in the programme offer a look at shaping an identity beyond labels and emergence from generational and ancestral trauma.
TRIPPIN’ OVER MY TONGUE
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A young woman attends the funeral of her estranged father and trips on the customs and traditional ideals of what it is to be an Iranian woman.
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An examination of a breakdown on one’s own language. It is a record of a personal struggle in trying to construct meaning as an outsider in foreign culture.
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A fragmentary narrative of two women whose lives are distant from each other yet hold traces of one another. This film conjures the ghosts that hover over the day to day lives of these two women; a rumination on the experience of the immigrant.
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A girl struggles to understand her heritage and identify as a sperm donor baby, growning up not looking like her parents. Attempting to find out ‘Where she’s really from’, Ria approaches her Pakistani sperm donor father and hopes to learn more about her heritage through him.
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A young somali woman has trouble with her mother tongue and gets the encouragement she needs on a phone call to her father.
Whether it’s learning or losing a language, this programme looks at the barriers raised when the mother tongue isn't as fluent as we want, or the words simply slip away.
How do we connect to our culture when a language has been lost, and who do we turn to to serve as translators or teachers?
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Shot in the summer of 2018 and fascinating in terms of ethnography and cinematography, the filmmaker explores her dual cultural heritage and, in particular, the loss of a tool as underlying as language itself. Growing up in France in the 90s with a gather who never spoke to her Algerian meant the director’s link to her roots was broken, all the more considering language’s fundermental role as a way of bringing people together.
CALL ME BY MY NAME
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In this documentary short, Brits explore the challenges they’ve encountered with their non-Western names.
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A Chinese-Caribbean-Canadian woman tries to embrace her parents’ Trinidadian identity and traces back her roots.
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Across three Uber journeys, a woman of colour explains who she is to people who have already made their minds up. A poignant exploration of cultural lines and the desire for connection.
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Substituting sly metaphor for political rhetoric on immigration, Lin examines our world of ethical and racial complexities.
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A magical realism short about a young British Nigerian woman who is forced to deal with her identity crises when a mysterious old woman squats on chest.
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A monotonous night in a south London takeaway is ‘enlightened’ when a delivery driver is reminded of a contentious theory her learnt on YouTube.
It’s an experience not uncommon within a diaspora to have your name viewed as too foreign or exotic, and subject to either whitewashing or clumsy - and sustained - mispronunciation.
Expanding on the theme, this programme will look at the wider ideas of labels and definitions of identity and heritage.
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Elle doesn’t like indigenous Sami people - though her first language was South Sami. Under pressure from her son, she reluctantly returns to Lapland and the Great Northern Mountain for her sister Sami’s funeral.
ARCHIVE
Home Is Elsewhere: a photography series by Amaal Said.
Check out the online exhibition part of BFI x T A P E presents: But Where Are You Really From? here.
A week-long takeover of the BFI’s online channels and month-long season at BFI Southbank exploring themes of mixed heritage identity, programmed by T A P E Collective. Summer 2021.
A video essay by T A P E looking at names, mother tongue and ‘the good immigrant’ trope in cinema and TV. Watch on BFI YouTube
In this zine, T A P E celebrate all forms of art and creativity to further validate the voices of children of immigrants and mixed-heritage folk. Download the PDF here.
T A P E Collective has curated a digital message board filled with real-life stories and anecdotes of different experiences of belonging and not belonging. Read on the BFI website.
